Best-Laid Plans
ShortStory 7,088 words Recommended by 4 award/anthology sources
"The mouse looked at me. I looked back. It clutched a shiny blue marble in its front paws. It wasn’t a surprise that the mouse was floating peacefully in midair. Mice adapt quite well to zero gravity, and this particular mouse had been bred, born, and raised here on Lasky Station, as had generations of its forebears. Foremice. Predecessors."
Quasar links out; the story lives on Clarkesworld, where the author gets the click.